I picked up a Borla, a cutout, and Mac mids with high flow cats and y-pipe for super cheap. My car has 1 year/ 18000 miles left on warranty. My question is should I wait to install?-the GM guys at several different dealers told me it will void my warranty if I install these. I don't want to lose what lil warranty I have left, but I want to try out this system soon

 

I wouldn't wait. But that's just me, I have no patience. There is a law that many on this board have referred to that states a dealership/insurance carrier can not void a warranty for any aftermarket part unless they can prove the part caused the current problem or failure.

So you could put on your exhaust stuff and lets say your drivers side power window motor dies. They have to fix it under warranty because there is no way they can prove headers and a catback caused that to fail. Really if you think about it there isn't too many things a properly installed set of headers/catback can damage. It's not like your putting new heads/cam or nitrous in the car.

I say go for it now. But again I have no patience.

 

Does anyone know where I can find this law?

 

Check this place out for a little warranty info.

www.sema.org/content/?id=8124


Hope this helps

 

That is exactly what I needed to see

Thank you so much. I see a complete exhaust install in my immediate future

I didn't think the headers and all would affect anything too drastically especially since I'm getting tuning with LS1 edit right after.

 

I sure its all up to interpretation. If you blow your rear end, could the dealership say that you increased the HP which blew the rear end? Or say you broke the engine, could that be because you are running leaner or altered the computer through the use of LS1 Edit or a MAFT?
I'm thinking of doing the same thing but since I have a 2002, there is a lot of warranty to loose.

 

I doubt just a catback and midlength headers could break a rearend or an engine. Your only looking at maybe 20-25 HP gain on a stock car. You would have to add more HP mods and slicks to do any real damage. But like you said a dealership may try to use that as an excuse to not cover your car. In that scenario you have two choices.

1). fight them. Get a lawyer if need be because you will probably win.

2). replace all stock equipment before bringing the car to the dealer in the first place. Yes this can be a pain and even cost you a few $$ if you need to go to an exhaust shop first but if your engine dies then I might consider it.

But the odds of anything major going wrong on a relatively low mileage LS1 with relatively few HP mods are pretty small. I would do the headers and exhaust since you all ready have them. If I had two years of warranty left then I would start with simple bolt-ons like lid, muffler, CAI, ported TB, asp undrdrive pullie and maybe simple suspension stuff like STB and SFC. Most of that stuff can be easily removed and stock stuff replaced within a few hours. Then when the warranty time is getting close to being up you can move into headers, torque converters, rear ends, N20, heads/cam or whatever strikes your fancy.